1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a capsule support arrangement for a filling and closing machine, in particular for medical applications.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Filling and closing machines are known, for instance from pharmaceutical applications, in which capsules in which an upper capsule part is slipped onto a lower capsule part are filled, for instance with a medication. The capsules are delivered empty and are then filled and closed incrementally at a plurality of stations on a conveyor wheel. At the various stations, quality and intactness tests can then for instance be performed. The known machines have fundamentally proven themselves over time. In laboratory areas, however, there are applications in which the known machines cannot be used in a targeted way, since the known machines are designed for the highest possible throughput. In the laboratory field, however, it is often necessary to fill only a small batch of capsules of a certain size. Although it is fundamentally possible to retrofit known machines, so that instead of one capsule size a different capsule size can be filled, nevertheless such retrofitting is very complicated and expensive. For the conveyor wheel in particular, many different capsule support arrangements have to be replaced in order to make conveying possible.